


When there were three

by Santaanawinds



Series: I love you to the moon, and sun, and stars [5]
Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Pretty. Odd. Era, Secret Relationship, Vices & Virtues Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27511606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Santaanawinds/pseuds/Santaanawinds
Summary: There was a time when it was just the three of them-Spencer, Brendon, and Sarah. Unless you count Haley. Which Spencer didn't, anymore. She's not even an after-thought now.Set between the end of 'Eighteen' up to 'Stargazing' Chapter 2
Relationships: Haley Heckenberg/Sarah Orzechowski/Spencer Smith/Brendon Urie, Haley Heckenberg/Spencer Smith, Sarah Orzechowski/Brendon Urie, Spencer Smith/Brendon Urie
Series: I love you to the moon, and sun, and stars [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/807903
Kudos: 1





	When there were three

There were three once, before there was Zack. Well, ok, Zack was number three, in numerical order of appearance in Brendon and Spencer’s lives. But before there was Zack-Brendon-Sarah, there was Brendon-Sarah-Spencer. 

Spencer still remembers the day that Brendon brought home Sarah to meet him (for real this time, and not in a ‘I love that girl we just met two minutes ago who told me to get lost’ kind of a way). It wasn’t that long after the guys moved to LA. Spencer was minding his own business, making a sandwich when a polite female voice said from somewhere behind him ‘I think I found him’. Brendon had brought the woman home with him and had gone off in search of Spencer immediately. Sarah knew the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, and imagined they might have better luck if they checked the kitchen first. 

‘Uh, hi. Sara, was it?’  
‘Sarah, but close enough.’ Brendon bounded into the kitchen then.  
‘Hey, so you met Spencer already.’  
‘We’ve met before, brainiac.’  
‘Yeah, but like, now it’s official.’  
‘What is?’ Sarah and Spencer asked in unison.  
‘Sarah’s my girlfriend, and Spencer’s the man in my life. I’m gonna kiss him like this,’ he demonstrated, ‘and I’m gonna touch him like this,’ he slipped his hand into Spencer’s back pocket, ‘and I’m gonna hold him like this, even if you’re around.’ He wraps his arms around Spencer.  
‘But not in public though.’ Spencer says.  
‘But not in public. My parents would die and fans would have a field day.’ Brendon explains. He looks up at Sarah to see how she’s taking it. It’s not as though he hadn’t told her how it is already and she hadn’t already said she was cool with it.  
‘Ok, sure. I promise I won’t tell.’ The thought hadn’t even occurred to Spencer. ‘Hey, I’m dating you, I’m not trying to ruin your life.’ Sarah elaborates. ‘Or Spencer’s.’  
‘Can you imagine Ryan or Jon calling up? ‘Hey, were you fucking on the bus when we were around?’ Let’s never tell them and say we did.’ Brendon says.  
‘I appreciate that.’ Spencer had a hard time with the politics of relationship publicity sometimes. ‘So would Haley, too, I think.’  
‘Spencer’s girlfriend.’ Brendon says. ‘She’d freak if we went public.’ 

One day, the three of them were on the couch together, Brendon in the middle, just hanging out.  
‘Hey, how come I never walk in on you two, but Spencer finds us in the middle of it all the time?’  
‘Probably because there’s nothing to walk in on.’ Spencer says.  
‘We’re not into sex.’ Brendon explains.  
‘He means I’m not into it. It’s not my deal.’  
‘Everyone has a deal. Are you one of those guys that’s like, romantically into guys, but physically, it’s just girls? Or do you only have sex with girls, but you love them too, or…I mean, everyone has a deal.’ Sarah repeats herself. She knew people for whom romantic and sexual attraction just didn’t match.  
‘I don’t.’  
‘Spencer has no deal. He’s not interested in sex. I know he loves me though. We were high school sweethearts. I just don’t know when Brendon-and-Spencer became BrendonandSpencer, y’know?’  
‘Homecoming. Senior Year. I skipped mine after junior year and you made up some crap so your parents would let you come over to my place and hang out with me. I think that’s when I knew that it wasn’t all one-sided.’  
‘It was never one-sided, Spencer. Teenage me liked sex. Teenage me liked Spencer a hell of a lot more. It was just unfortunate that you were a boy.’ Brendon smiled fondly. ‘It took Spencer 3 hours to kiss me that night.’  
‘At least I finally did it. You keep nearly doing it and then pulling away all night.’  
‘In my defence, Mormon upbringing.’  
‘Catholic.’  
‘He’s got you beat, there, B.’ Sarah agrees. 

Spencer though, didn’t really care who won, he just liked bickering playfully with Brendon. He leaned over and kissed him softly, cutting him off on his ‘my strict Mormon parents were worse than your relaxed Catholic parents’ speech.  
‘Is it creepy to say that’s hot? The two of you.’  
‘No.’ Spencer says.  
‘Nah.’ Brendon agrees. ‘But your dream of a threesome is dead.’  
‘What? I-I never said that! Brendon!’ Sarah’s flustered, which confirms Brendon’s suspicion that Sarah was up for it.  
‘Don’t worry. There’s still plenty of kisses for both of you.’ He says, pressing his mouth to Sarah’s.  
‘It’s not my cup of tea, but uh, I’m flattered anyway.’ Spencer says.  
‘Let’s stop talking about this now.’ Sarah suggests. Spencer readily agrees. 

For whatever reason, maybe it’s Haley’s insecurity, maybe it’s that Brendon and Sarah were so obviously made with the other in mind, maybe it’s that Spencer doesn’t so much have an affinity for physicality as he does for spending time with Brendon, but he fades into the background, until the only thing between them is their friendship. He misses Brendon badly, but it’s hard to say that with their complicated history and the fact that Sarah gives something to Brendon that Spencer cannot. He just doesn’t compare, and Haley tells him it’s fine because he still has her, but he learns to shove it down, deep down into the ass end of his heart and pretend it doesn’t hurt when he wakes to them snuggling on the couch and leaves them the same way in the evening to go to bed. When Sarah gets the butt-grabs and the kisses and the hugs, and Spencer can barely get a smile when she’s around. 

Brendon’s outgrown their love, whatever it was, and Spencer can be fine with that because he’s still his best friend. They still have video games, and music, and most of the same friends, and Sarah’s lovely, and Haley gets along with her, and they double date a lot, and Spencer never wishes he was going home to crawl into Brendon’s bed and sleep with him on his chest-usually. He gets used to the fact that their relationship, as special as it once was, is gone. This goes on for a long damn time, even after they lose Ryan and Jon. Spencer has the worst year of his life that year, and then the next year, has it again. 

He’s never felt the same way for someone else as he has for Brendon. He’s lacking the words to describe how it feels, but a part of him seems empty, like it just isn’t there. He needs him like he needs the sun, like he needs the planets to spin to keep him on the ground. Without Brendon, he feels untethered, lost in space. It’s only made worse when things with Haley end the very definition of ‘badly’ because as much as he likes her, he’s pining for people he can never have. She tells him to quit being a pussy and tell Brendon he loves him.  
‘I can’t. He has her.’ It’s not fair to Sarah, though. She’s done nothing to deserve Spencer’s disdain, so he’s determined she won’t get it. Thankfully for Spencer, Haley knows nothing of the pathetic little candle he’s still holding out for Zack. That would only compound the pain he’s in, and Haley, too, if he’s honest. It’s ok though, because he knows there’s nothing on planet earth that could make Zack want him, and there never has been, so he doesn’t have to remember what it felt like to matter to someone who’s forgotten you’re alive. Well, not for a second time, anyway. 

He dies inside when he wakes up and smells the coffee, that is, if coffee were Zack’s emotional blue balls for Brendon, who used to share the same crush on Zack as Spencer. But it’s fine, because everyone knows that Brendon’s too in love with Sarah to imagine Zack might know he’s alive and definitely open to it. Isn’t it? 

No such luck. Sarah sits by him at practice one day-she’s dropped off lunch again, and making small talk.  
‘They’d be cute if they ever got their act together, wouldn’t they?’  
‘Excuse me?’  
‘B and Zack. Everyone can see it but them. I don’t know how much further I can push B without spelling it out. I mean, I was ok with you back when I thought that was a thing, I don’t know why he’d think I wasn’t open to being poly. B needs to get his shit together. It’s just painful for the rest of us watching it not happen.’ Painful was right.  
‘Yeah. Yeah, he does.’ Spencer knows Brendon though, and he knows he won’t without a shove in the right direction (or six). The next day, when Brendon’s singing that love song that he wrote that Spencer secretly wished (but knew better than to seriously believe) was a message for him, he confronted Zack, and within half an hour, wanted to rip his own heart out just to feel it stop beating. 

It’s a funny thing, jealously. Sometimes Spencer wishes he could have the kind of love that Brendon and Sarah have, and sometimes, Brendon has that kind of love-with the girl that meant more to him than Spencer ever did, with the boy that meant more to him than Spencer ever did and whilst being the first person that Spencer ever truly loved. The fact that Zack was the boy that Spencer could never actually have was just the icing on the cake. Tearing his own heart out of his chest would most definitely hurt less than that.

Figures, the boy that ripped out Spencer’s heart is the one that would tell his pathetic little secret to the boy that didn’t know he had Spencer’s heart. Girls, boys, they’re all adults, it just makes Spencer feel like he could ever get over them to pretend they’re just schoolboy fantasies. The problem with someone as open-minded and loving as Sarah, is that she assumes the rest of the world is, too. The way he hears it, she pushed Zack into confessing his own supposed feelings. 

When Spencer doesn’t sleep with Zack, he presumes it isn’t going to last. He bemoans this to Brendon, who’s always understood Spencer’s pain, even when he doesn’t understand the source of it. Brendon fixes everything, until Spencer wants to learn about making out, but Brendon wouldn’t do shit before they talked about it.  
‘Hey,’ Spencer says. ‘I need a favour.’  
‘What can I do for you?’ Brendon’s got a guitar in hand and he’s scribbling on a pad, so obviously, it’s a bad time. When it comes to Spencer though, there’s no such thing.  
‘Don’t laugh, or I’ll walk out of here and the guys won’t play with you for months.’ Brendon loved stage gay. This was a serious threat.  
‘What? You want me to do your makeup again?’ They’d talked about bringing back a hint of the old look.  
‘I want you to teachmehowtomakeout.’  
‘What? I can’t understand you.’ Spencer turns red and takes a deep breath.  
‘Teach me to make out. Please?’ Brendon can’t help it, a smile plays on his lips and a chuckle escapes.  
‘Uh-‘ Spencer steps forward, claps a hand over his mouth.  
‘Don’t say a word. This is humiliating enough, ok?’ Brendon nodded. ‘Nod or shake your head. Will you help me?’ Brendon nodded again.  
‘Of course.’ He said after Spencer removed his hand. ‘I might be out of practice though, considering my boyfriend disappeared and left behind my band mate when Ryan and Jon left.’  
‘I was 16 when I fell in love with you. Once you said you loved me back, I thought it was never going to end.’  
‘I didn’t know it did.’ 

Spencer has no idea why Brendon’s fronting. It’s not as though things ever got weird when he got bored of him and moved on to Big Love.  
‘You stopped kissing me and grabbing my butt and holding my hand and taking me on dates and sleeping next to me in bed, and all of a sudden, I wasn’t the man in your life anymore. I didn’t know what to do with that.’  
‘It wasn’t just me. You pulled away.’  
‘Because I thought you were pulling away. You had Sarah and you were obviously made for each other.’  
‘So were you and me.’ Brendon truly believes that Spencer is his soul mate. Destined to find one another, regardless of any romantic attachment.  
‘And you have Zack, too, and they’re both willing to have sex with you.’  
‘Why does it always come down to sex with you? You don’t even want it.’ Brendon says. He’s not complaining; it’s just, for a guy without any interest in it, Spencer sure thinks about sex a lot. 

‘That’s the point. I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was going to marry Haley, but she didn’t want to be with me unless I changed my mind. I can’t. I can’t just decide to be normal and want sex.’ Spencer explains. ‘Put your hand on my thigh, and my heart will stop. I’ll forget how to breathe. Move it up further, and my teeth will itch. It’s just how I’ve always been. I can’t be any other way. Like, I could probably make myself do it if I had to, but it’s not going to be good for anyone. No one wants that.’  
‘No one who loves you wants you to force yourself either.’  
‘Then, what happened between us?’  
‘I don’t know, Spencer. I thought that was just how we were now. I didn’t ask about it because I don’t want to ask for something that you can’t give. You’re kind of a brick wall, but maybe that’s just what makes you comfortable, I don’t know.’  
‘I don’t just want to never touch you at all.’ Spencer explains. ‘It hurt, so much. I thought you were done with whatever we were. You tell me you love me, but you said it the same way to Zack, years ago, before you knew he was alive.’  
‘I love Zack so much, probably too much, so what does that tell you?’  
‘I’m asexual, not a psychic, B.’ 

Brendon’s face softens. Did Spencer really not know all this time how much he loved him? He’s been Brendon’s number one since he thought he was too young to fall in love. They have a connection he’s never been good at putting into words, and he needs Spencer like he needs a beat in every song. Spencer holds him together, he’s the backbone of every story, he keeps Brendon’s heartbeat in time. Things have been kind of fucked up for a while, but they’re here now, fixing it. Altering the tempo so the words fit in the verse.  
‘Come here.’ Spencer steps closer and gets hugged by Brendon and his fender. ‘I love you, Spencer. We’re supposed to be together. I might not believe in god, but I believe in that. You and me. We just got lost for a little while.’ 

It was never clearer to Spencer than in that moment that he can’t. Fucking. Communicate.

‘I love you too, B. So much. You were a fever I could never sweat out.’ Brendon laughs.  
‘You’re quoting our album title?’ Spencer punches Brendon’s shoulder, 90% playfully, and 10% seriously.  
‘Don’t be an asshole. Where do you think Ryan got it?’  
‘Seriously?’ He’d never told Brendon that.  
‘He stayed after practice, asked me who I was moony-eyed and fucking up songs for. So I told him, and he said that puppy-love was contagious.’ Spencer smiled. ‘I was still pissed off about the whole ‘being in love with you’ thing, so I bit back and told him I couldn’t sweat it out.’  
‘You tried?’ Brendon asked.  
‘Catholic school. Gay, sort of. Of course I tried. I was burning up on the inside. That’s not a hell pun, by the way.’  
‘But it could be.’ Brendon smiled. 

‘So, now that you’ve found me again, making out?’  
‘Why do you want to know so badly anyway?’  
‘Because I’m seeing someone and they’re going to dump me if I don’t give them something.’ Brendon pulled a face. ‘Yeah, I know. It’s just until I get the chance to have that conversation. ‘I’m never going to fuck you’ doesn’t always go so well.’  
‘Girl or guy?’  
‘Not telling.’  
‘Objection. Speaks to relevancy. Is there a rack involved?’  
‘Sustained. There might be.’  
‘Ok, well, let me put my guitar down and I’ll be right there to cure your fever.’ Brendon smiled.


End file.
